TROUT LAKE — Everyone knows that home energy bills can be expensive — local government agencies feel the sting of those costs too. Across Gorge communities, small agencies like school districts and fire departments are taking advantage of state grants for small scale solar projects, both to set themselves up for long-term savings and to build backup emergency power.
The small community of Trout Lake in Klickitat County is home to two in-progress solar projects, one at Trout Lake Fire Hall and the other at Trout Lake’s only school building, both funded from clean energy grants created by Washington’s Climate Commitment Act. This law, passed in 2021, uses money collected from companies that produce a large amount of greenhouse gasses to pay for projects aimed at reducing climate pollution.
Olympia Community Solar, a non-profit that assists entities throughout Washington State secure funding for solar, aided in getting both Trout Lake projects off the ground. Both local agencies even chose the same contractor: Blossom Solar.
The fire hall project includes both roof-mounted solar panels and a battery backup system sufficient to provide over a week of backup power, according to a progress report from Lucas King of Mt. Adams Resource Stewards at the July 7 meeting of the Trout Lake Community Council. The school is installing only solar panels with no battery storage which raised some concerns among council members at its August meeting.
“The whole point of this grant was the batteries, so that we had a place for community members to go,” councilor Joanna Turner said. But another member, Pat Arnold, said that the school was free to use the grant funds as they saw fit; emergency preparedness was not a requirement of the grant.
Doug Dearden, superintendent for the Trout Lake School District, told Uplift Local that the cost to store extra power was just too high. “It was determined that we would need huge amounts of batteries to power the building,” Dearden said. “The cost of that would outweigh any particular savings that we would have.”
Mason Rolph, executive director of Olympia Community Solar, further elaborated on that point in an interview, estimating that a battery system large enough to provide backup power to the school would cost at least $1 million. He noted that the fire department both has a smaller building and a bigger need for backup power. “Right when we were doing the application last year, the department had a bad winter storm and experienced a 48-hour long outage,” Rolph recalled. “And we used that as an example of why they needed batteries.”
Projections from Olympia Community Solar estimate that over the 30 year lifespan of both projects the school will see a projected energy savings of $405,000, an average of $13,500 per year. The fire department’s estimated savings are less but still substantial: $185,000, averaging of $6,100 per year).
Data from the US Energy Information Administration indicates that energy costs have outpaced inflation since 2022, a trend forecasted to continue through 2026 and beyond. Though both Washington and Oregon enjoy lower energy costs than the national average, Rolph of Olympia Solar expressed that every cent of savings can help in the long run.
Rolph touts indirect benefits for the wider community as well. “If they don’t spend as much of their tax funds on power bills, they’ll spend that on fighting fires and teaching kids,” he explained. “These two projects give us a great opportunity to perform clean energy education in a rural, probably overlooked clean energy community.”
He was particularly happy to be working with a school district, noting that their past work with schools has shown that students today face severe climate-related anxiety. “We don’t have conclusive data, but we hope that, by showing the school district is taking proactive action to emissions reduction, maybe the students could feel a little less anxious about their school’s, or their community’s, contributions to climate issues,” Rolph said.
The design process for these projects has not been without questions. Brent Fetsch, a member of the Trout Lake School Board, expressed concern at the board’s June 24 meeting that the school’s roof might not be able to withstand the weight of both solar panels and winter snow load, and at the June 9 meeting of the Klickitat County Fire District #1, a commissioner wondered if the batteries were properly rated for the local weather.
Matthew Peters, director of sales and systems for Blossom Solar, says that they are taking Fetsch’s concerns seriously, and have reevaluated the design for the school, incorporating custom structural engineering to ensure it could handle the area’s snow load. They also agreed to back the project with a ten-year warranty “to really make them feel that we’re in it with them,” as Peters commented.
As for the fire hall, Peters said that the Franklin WH batteries they will be using “operate down to well below freezing temperatures without an impact to performance.” As part of what Peters called a “really robust, layered power approach,” a generator system is also going to be installed. These generators can take over if the batteries are drained, or otherwise rendered non-functional, until the batteries can operate again.
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In addition to the two projects in Trout Lake, here is a brief rundown of similar, small-scale solar projects in development throughout the Gorge. This does not include large solar farms such as the Deschutes Solar and Storage Project.
- The Lyle Fire Department received over $712,000 in Washington Department of Commerce grant funds for a solar and energy storage project at its fire station in 2024. Lyle’s fire chief Brian Beaulaurier told Uplift Local they plan to complete work on this by the end of the month.
- Skamania County Public Utility District (PUD) and Skamania Fire Protection District #6 entered into an interlocal agreement on June 16 to construct an “off-grid microgrid” at Station 6 in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, which is projected to provide 100 hours of backup power for fire and EMS operations. This project is currently in the early discussion phase.
- Other clean energy grant awardees under Washington’s Climate Commitment Act include feasibility studies for solar projects at Stevenson United Methodist Church and within the Klickitat Wildlife Area.
See a full list of 2026’s awards across Washington state here.
Across the river, the Oregon Department of Energy’s Community Renewable Energy Grant Program has been working to bolster clean energy initiatives in the state since 2021. Grant awardees in the Columbia Gorge area for 2026 include rooftop solar and battery storage for the Cascade Locks Fire Station and a similar project at Cascade Locks Elementary School, which may include an electric vehicle (EV) charging station. For further information about the elementary school project, including its projected benefits to the local community, see past coverage from Columbia Gorge News.
Oregon Department of Energy grant funds are also financing a microgrid project at the Mt. Hood Town Hall in Parkdale, with the hope that this will turn the building into a resiliency hub for the Upper Hood River Valley.
- For a more in-depth look, see this case study from the project contractor, Mayfield Renewables.
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Updates on solar projects have been a frequent topic at many Gorge meetings this summer. Coverage by our Gorge Documenters team originally brought the two projects we spotlighted in Trout Lake to our attention.
Swen Carlson is Uplift Local's Community Editor in Oregon. He has lived in The Dalles for the past decade and got his start in journalism with Uplift Local's Gorge Documenters program. Reprinted with permission.
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